


Strengths Aren't All the Same

by grandsequel (Yunho)



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 01:41:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yunho/pseuds/grandsequel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick Amaro is attracted to strength. He sees it in all the women in his life.</p><p>Can be interpreted as romantic Nick/Olivia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strengths Aren't All the Same

It had always been strength, above all else, that attracted Nick. He’d seen it in Maria the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. Behind the coconut brown of her eyes, he’d seen the strength of a hundred of the men he’d trained with at the police academy. She had it and more. It wasn’t that she could shoot straight and reload the gun with barely a blink that had impressed him. It wasn’t that she was already desensitized to the violence of the world either. It was that she could look him straight in the eye and tell him off for whatever gaffe he’d made and then smile in forgiveness. 

Forgiveness took strength. Strength that Nick didn’t know if even he possessed.

He admired strong women. Maybe that was the silver lining of his job. Not just the satisfaction of putting away bastards for life for committing crimes so heinous the nightmares still kept him up at night. Maybe what made the job bearable for Nick, other than knowing he was making the streets just a little safer, was that he got to look women in the eye every day and see strength, _resilience_ , that few men have—and few ever have to have. Because building strength for something that society is supposed to protect you from, strength for something _you shouldn’t need strength for_ —that was humbling.

Nick saw strength in everyone, but strengths, like weaknesses, come in different forms. He knew what strength had first attracted Maria to him. And he knew what strength first attracted Olivia to him.

After two years, Nick knew she was strong. Hell, just looking at her file before he’d started at SVU had evidenced just what kind of strength she had. It took a certain kind of person to be able to work SVU for over 14 years.

So much about Olivia had captivated Nick. For a while it had been hero-worship, along with the respect he’d given to her without a second thought. Hero-worship turned to admiration not long after. And even when the Karissa ordeal had blown up in his face, even when he felt like all the hard-earned trust between him and Olivia had fallen through—there was still a part of him that trusted _her_ , even if he believed she didn’t trust him. 

He’d been wrong, of course. Whether it was a flaw or not, Olivia could be trusting in ways Nick still couldn’t grasp. Another of Olivia’s strengths, he supposed. Her ability to trust even when all evidence told her not to.

There was one moment, in particular, when Nick knew he’d given something to Olivia more than respect or admiration. He had followed her into the dark, abandoned warehouse where a lost boy was being kept prisoner. Scared, cold, hungry—Wyatt Morris had proven he was a strong kid in the way he’d endured days kidnapped and alone. Nick remembered the sheer relief that had pounded his stomach, his very gut, when Olivia had kicked the door open and Wyatt had been there. It was a kind of relief that Nick loved and hated feeling—loved, because it meant the squad hadn’t been too late to save another victim; hated, because someone had to be a victim in the first place.

He’d watched Olivia make her way cautiously to the boy, before gently picking him up. She had cradled his head in the juncture between her neck and shoulder, one arm holding him securely and the other rubbing his back in a gesture of assurance. She had stood there a moment, crooning to him that he was okay, that he was safe. That she would protect him. Then she had turned to Nick, eyes soft, eyes gentle. She hadn’t smiled at him—it wasn’t the kind of situation where you could smile—but she had looked straight into his eyes and Nick had known, he _really_ had, that she was still speaking to Wyatt. But for that split second, Olivia Benson had looked at Nick Amaro and said, “Everything’s okay,” and it had felt like she was saying the words to _him_. Once again Nick saw the strength, the trust, the loyalty, the sheer _dedication_ she had, and that was it. That was when he gave Olivia a silent promise: That he was going to work until he was just as strong as she was.

Inspiration. _That_ was the strength Olivia had that set her apart from so many others.


End file.
